It was late and after a long day you crawled into your bed. Your head was already swimming with the thoughts of all that you had to do tomorrow. Ever since you turned eighteen it seemed your once peaceful world had been turned upside-down and filled with nothing but one headache after another. You had been so busy lately with tiresome tasks and newfound responsibilities. Sometimes it felt like you were drowning in a sea of drama and stress. You always tried your best to keep your head above water and keep soldiering on, but it always seemed as if there was always something new only too eager to try and drag you down. Exhausted both mentally and physically you turned your head to glance at your alarm clock. The time was exactly at 11:11pm. Remembering the superstition that this was the time to make wishes on you indulged in a little folly and closed your eyes. You thought for a second on what to wish for...love...money...world peace? No, none of those things seemed appealing at the moment. What you really wanted was to avoid tomorrow and all of the responsibilities it had in store. Truth be told you were scared of graduation and what it would mean for you. Soon you would be considered a full fledged adult, forced to go out into the world to try and make something of yourself. You would be expected to figure out what you wanted to do with the rest of your life and you just weren't sure you knew what that was yet. Everything and everyone seemed to be changing and moving on with their lives and it was all you could do to try and keep up.
"I wish that I'd never have to grow up." You said softly into your silent bedroom and at that moment you meant it with all of your heart. Wish made; you open your eyes just in time to see the numbers on your clock change to 11:12pm. Your eyes traveled your empty dark bedroom. Pretty soon this would no longer be your room anymore. The thought made unbidden tears pool behind your eyes, but you stopped them from flowing by shutting your eyes and lying down. You would not think of these things any longer. Tonight you were just going to sleep and forget about it. You would deal with it all tomorrow. You stubbornly pulled your blankets over your shoulders and emptied your mind. After some time had passed you were drifting in that state between sleep and wakefulness. You don't know why, but you open your heavy eyelids one last time to stare at the clock. It read 12:00am midnight. You blinked at it unfeelingly and that's when out of the corner of your eyes you see something move just out of your peripheral view. Startled you whip up out of bed and turn your head in the direction it moved. Your eyes search your darkened room, but all is still and nothing is out of place. You gaze over your furniture one by one, but nothing moves. You must be more tired than you thought. Seeing it was nothing you lay back down and close your eyes.
You instantly fall back into that peaceful half sleep state when you feel a slight breeze that felt like fingertips ruffle through your hair. You must have forgotten to close the window you think sleepily never bothering to open your eyes. Then the small breeze in your hair stops and you feel it begin to tickle your neck. The sensation feels oddly like being kissed softly by cool lips. You thrash your head gently from side to side to try and put an end to the tickling feeling. Sleep was so close now that you were very near that sweet blissful nothingness of unconsciousness.
You were just about to surrender yourself to its loving depths when you vaguely began to sense a strange presence nearing you. Seconds later you felt a slight weight begin to creep above you. The wrongness of the situation woke up your brain and pushed away the clinging tendrils of sleep. You thrust open your eyes only to see a dark corporal mist of nearly transparent blackness in the shape of a man looming over your body and staring down at you. You looked into its semi-solid black face that had absolutely no facial features and you felt a scream building in the back of your throat. Was this a ghost? You opened your mouth to let loose your scream, but all that comes out is a soft strangled gasp. Your brain yells at you to move and try and make a run for it, but as the faceless half man, half mist atop you keeps looking at you, you begin to become literally paralyzed by fear. Panic begins to rise within you like a massive tidal wave and just as you think you might be crushed by it you hear a low masculine voice from somewhere across the room towards where your window is call out angrily, "Shadow!" The dark being darts off of you in a blink of an eye and all of a sudden your room is filled with the sounds of a struggle as things are knocked over and bodies crash to the ground. No longer paralyzed by your fear you dash out of bed and run to flip on the light switch. There you see in the illuminated room the most gorgeous man you have ever beheld chasing the dark semi-spectral being around your room. He was wearing a tight fitting light green t-shirt with an open V collar that showed a peep of hard lightly tanned pecs. The fabric of his shirt clung to his lean form and set the muscles underneath into splendid view. With it he had on dark faded skinny jeans that enhanced his long legs. His auburn hair was a beautiful mixture of reddish brown tints that seemed to catch the light every time he darted back and forth to catch the elusive black figure. They are both so quick it is hard to follow them with your eyes and it seems that the mysterious creature can at times actually disappear into the rest of the shadows in your room. The real man bounds across the room where the shadow man has re-emerged and it seems as if he almost floats. He just misses as the corporal being playfully jumps just out of his reach. Then the real man gets back up and begins to climb on top of your desk. He stands on it as his eyes focus on his prey and then he gracefully leaps like a panther and pounces atop the dark being, pinning it to the ground. With a forceful yank he grabs the corporal being's leg and sticks its foot to the insole of his own brown leather shoe.
